This message is for current or former medical students of Michigan State University College of Human Medicine or anyone familar with MSU-CHM. What are the advantages or disadvantages of the MSU College of Human Medicine. I would like to go medical school to work in general or family medicine. Would this be a good school?
This question is difficult to answer, because what one views as an advantage may well be a liability for others. I will try give you a little better perspective however. 1) MSU is the only school where you have a high quality MD, DO, Vet and Nursing school all in one campus. What will that mean? That's up to you I guess. I sit in class with the DO students every day (our lectures are together). Although we have many differences (some are kind of odd, for instance, we take the exact same exams but the osteo students' cut-off between passing and failing is lower than for the MD students, why that would be is for another discussion, since I don't know the answer) but despite the differences, we are taught by MD's and DO's in lecture and have an opportunity to learn more about one another. 2) Last I knew, MSUCHM was rated #6 in the nation for primary carem by US News. Is that meaningful? I doubt it, and it probably shouldn't be a reason to go ANYWHERE, but somebody thinks that it is a worthwhile place, especially to learn the whole primary care scene. 3) MSUCHM is, like many MD schools a proponent of the Bio-psycho-social model of medicine as opposed to the more outdated biomedical model (as it has since the 60's when the school was founded, treating the "whole patient" is not just a DO thing). 4) MSUCHM is a community integrated medical school. You move to one of 6 community hospital campuses for 3rd and 4th year and get a little better idea of what medicine in the real world is like. One of the pitfalls of a high-power academic medical center is that you get a skewed perspective of what medicine in the real world is like (since many of the zebras go there, one can start to think that there are zebras everywhere). Also, the ratio of students to faculty is very good, since there are only a few of us (96 in my class) divided up into 6 campuses each of which have 2 or 3 hospitals, the ratio is very nice. 5) MSUCHM has always been an innovator in the educational process. The 2nd year is PBL. You need to take that into consideration and decide if it is right for you. They were one of the very first PBL innovators, in fact, folks from Harvard Med School (they may loathe to admit it) came to MSU to find out about PBL before they integrated it into their school. 6) MSU is a student-centered medical school. Their most important product is not bench research like the many research-oriented intitutions, but its graduates. They put a great deal of effort into it, and it shows. 7) Gross Anatomy lab is prosected. Although you can sign up to perform the prosections for every term, you don't have to cut if you don't want to. There are about 60 cadavers in the lab at any given time and you just take in as much as you can in a very efficient manner. 8) MSU is a Big 10 school, with all that comes with it in terms or resources, extra-curriculars etc. 9) Patient contact and interaction begins right away. Some schools wait until year 3. 10) The people are so friendly. A terrific environment in which to learn. I may add more as it comes to me, but this will probably be it for now. I hope this helps.
